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Question Best desktop app to use alongside webtrees?
- stubbyd
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What I'm looking for is a desktop app that I can use offline and as a data backup of my webtrees tree. I can see, and have read about the issues with researching in say Ancestry or MyHeritage and then exporting the gedcom and subsequent import to webtrees. But mostly because I'm a paranoid sort of chap about data retention I want to also have access to the tree elsewhere.
I'm happy for my webtree version to be the master, just looking for an app (if anybody knows one) that will handle webtrees data and be able to import/export to/from it without any issues.
Does such a beast exist?
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- Franz Frese
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Use a local installation of webtrees (with xampp, or something similar) , if you have a windows-system.
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- norwegian_sardines
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App "without any issues", I do not know, I suppose there is none, except:
Use a local installation of webtrees (with xampp, or something similar) , if you have a windows-system.
I feel the same. It kind of depends on a lot of variables.
First, every "app" including webtrees has some local dialect of GEDCOM, which means that some things will not transfer exactly from one program to another. Some commercial programs are very bad at following GEDCOM v5.5.1 and others are better.
Second, I depends on what you intend to do with the desktop app! Some reports will work perfectly fine on most desktop apps when you transfer via GEDCOM, but other reports will not. This will be due to data loss via GEDCOM or that their dialect does not support GEDCOM the same way webtrees supports it in specific areas like subtags and/or custom tags that are not part of GEDCOM.
Third, I would NEVER do round-tripping where I edit on both webtrees and the desktop, passing GEDCOM between them unless both programs has the exact same dialect.
The Franz suggestion of using webtrees locally using XAMPP works!
Ken
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- bertkoor
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- Greetings from Utrecht, Holland
There are plenty capable desktop applications, both paid for and free. If you read reviews then they all have their good and bad points. Grass on the other side always seems somewhat greener.
If you want peace of mind and have regular backups of your data, then firstly I'd advice looking into what backup arrangements are already there on your platform. Both on file level and on the database.
You could also use the following module to schedule downloading of the GEDCOM by a cron job elsewhere
github.com/Jefferson49/DownloadGedcomWithURL
stamboom.BertKoor.nl runs on webtrees v2.1.20
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- stubbyd
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Thanks.
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- stubbyd
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That is not my intention but there are times I am completely offline and with time to spare to do checking, etc. Also, in total honesty I don't find the webtrees frontend to be completely intuitive and struggle to get around it at times.Third, I would NEVER do round-tripping where I edit on both webtrees and the desktop, passing GEDCOM between them unless both programs has the exact same dialect.
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- stubbyd
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As someone that works in IT I have seen way too many folks trust online backups created by a third party come unstuck because the host ISP has had a complete system failure, etc.. it happens. But I will take a look at that plugin and all else fails I will set myself a reminder to manually do it. But as above I will certainly look at the XAMPP approach.If you want peace of mind and have regular backups of your data, then firstly I'd advice looking into what backup arrangements are already there on your platform. Both on file level and on the database.
You could also use the following module to schedule downloading of the GEDCOM by a cron job elsewhere
github.com/Jefferson49/DownloadGedcomWithURL
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- Franz Frese
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in any case I would always create a gedcom (.ged) file and store in a safe place, (this is a must have, imho)
second a copy of the places coordinates (if they exist)
third the text of html-blocks (wellcome, ...)
perhaps a list of the users (e-mail addy, ...)
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- Sir Peter
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Peter
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- norwegian_sardines
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That is not my intention but there are times I am completely offline and with time to spare to do checking, etc. Also, in total honesty I don't find the webtrees frontend to be completely intuitive and struggle to get around it at times.Third, I would NEVER do round-tripping where I edit on both webtrees and the desktop, passing GEDCOM between them unless both programs has the exact same dialect.
Being offline with spare time and doing “checking” can be done with just about any program/app, it is the “update/data entry” using the offline app that causes me to cringe. So if your intent is to just have a way to bring your current data into the field (i.e. library, graveyard, etc) as a reference then either XMAPP with webtrees, Desktop App (Family Historian, Family Tree Maker, Legacy, Roots Magic, Other), and a notebook for notes will work fine. When I’m in the field researching I don’t usually add directly to webtrees because I find it hard to implement good data entry practices while standing in a field, sitting at a library table, or conducting an interview.
As far as the front-end of webtrees not being intuitive, what things do you struggle with? What part of your data entry process is hampered by the GUI and/or design of webtrees? What suggestions do you have to make the online web-based application better and more intuitive?
Ken
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- photon flip
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I'm not quite sure if my MO would be described as round-tripping but I use webtrees offline locally on XAMPP as my primary place to add to and edit my tree. Periodically I export my GEDCOM and Geographic data and new images and import and overwrite to my online public tree and add and update images.Third, I would NEVER do round-tripping where I edit on both webtrees and the desktop, passing GEDCOM between them unless both programs has the exact same dialect.
I never go back the other way. If that's round-tripping it seems to be working without problems for me.
I also keep a backup of GEDCOM, Geographic data, images, database and some config. files offline and off computer - probably should keep those in a Faraday Cage if I was really paranoid and thinking about CMEs.
Am I round-tripping?
MurrayJ
Fuller-Bennett Family Tree
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- norwegian_sardines
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Graphically A -> B -> A is round tripping. Kind of like taking a round trip flight.
It is complicated even more when an edit is done on “B”.
Using two software programs could possibly cause some data to be lost either when the GEDCOM is produced or when the GEDCOM is read into the second program. This issue is greatly reduced if the programs are the same, but I’ve noted on the help boards for other programs that sometimes they produce a GEDCOM that when read back into the same program some piece of data is lost.
One of the great upsides to your tree residing on a server that can be accessed remotely from anywhere is that you are always dealing with the same program/interface/data.
You are not round-tripping and you have a great chance of not losing data if both programs are the same and you are careful to load all things on both systems correctly.
NOTE: I’m not against using multiple software programs to do genealogy, but you must know what issues (dropped/lost data, converted data, language issues, file system changes) this will cause by transferring data. Know what data needs to be transferred and where it must go on the receiving application! I’ve experimented with and owned a lot of different genealogy software since the early 1980s, written some tools and data entry programs as well! None were perfect and few interfaced well with others.
Ken
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- photon flip
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Personally I like to work offline where I can make mistakes and correct them, I can be a bit speculative while I find proof and generally take my time before I'm ready to go "live". So far webtress is working really well for this one direction updating.
MurrayJ
Fuller-Bennett Family Tree
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- mac.alter
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As I rebuild my tree, I only created a webtrees online version of the base trunk of my tree. The thousands of other folks are offline waiting for attention.
Mac.alter [update: 23 Nov 2024]
webtrees 2.2.0 | PHP Version 8.3 | mySQL mysqlnd 8.1.28 | MacOS 14.6 .1 (Sonoma)
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- Franz Frese
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I repeatedy have difficulty making sense of posts like this.
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- photon flip
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This from the master of the one word replyich habe immer wieder Schwierigkeiten solchen Beiträgen einen Sinn zu entnehmen.I repeatedy have difficulty making sense of posts like this.
MurrayJ
Fuller-Bennett Family Tree
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- Franz Frese
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- photon flip
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There.Where?
MurrayJ
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- Franz Frese
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- durangod
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